PD Sprint Triathlon - 21st July 2007

I arrived in PD swallowing antibiotics, decongestants and painkillers like they were smarties. I was "sick as a dog" but determined to pull something out the bag for the weekend.

I decided to do the Sprint Race as I didn't feel too bad - although with the benefits of hindsight that was probably the excitement and the drugs masking the reality of the situation.

So I found myself on the beach with the largest contingent of racers I'd ever seen in sprint race which was really cool although I wasn't feeling very motivated. However, the gun went off and I raced into the water closely behind one of my main rivals Iwata San from Japan. The water was quite shallow for quite a long way out and I did have a chuckle to myself as I "ran" past Iwata as he was swimming along.

I came out of the swim in about 14:30 which was OK but slower than I would have expected had I not been struggling to breath. Onto the bike (my strongest discipline) and off I went streaming past the faster swimmers. It was amazing how many tiny kids were ahead of me - wow could they swim!

Last year the bike was only 9.5k (it is supposed to be 20k) and I knew that if I was to stand a chance it had to be the full distance. I was pleasantly surprised to see that we turned right at the traffic lights where we had U-turned the year before. Sadly my elation lasted but a second or two as the U-turn was just a few meters further on. Oh-well a 10k bike this year!

Despite my breathing problems I still had a great bike and caught a pack with about 2.5k to go. Iwata and Don were in the pack so I whizzed past only to have them sit on my back wheel and draft me to the finish of the bike.

I was in first place out of transition but that's when it all went wrong and the higher demands of the run exposed my frailty. Iwata went past as if I were standing still and then within 2k Don was on my shoulder ready to pounce as soon as the first slight hill came upon us. There was no way to respond and off he went.

I struggled home in third place quite pleased under the circumstances but realised that the Olympic distance race tomorrow was unlikely to be as forgiving and I resigned myself to the fact that I probably wouldn't do it.

(A few more antibiotics, inti-inflammatorys, painkillers and decongestants later and the masking effect took hold, strangely I felt better again and I decided to do the Olympic race the next day albeit I drop out after the bike if I was really hurting - Singapore triathlon next weekend was my real target race).